The Present Middle and Passive

English has two voices. "The slave unties the horse" is active. "The horse is untied by the slave" is passive. Greek has a third, the middle, and it was there first. Smyth's grammar puts it plainly: the passive developed out of the middle (section 1735). That history explains why, in the present tense, one set of forms does both jobs.

Three voices

Voice is the feature of a verb that shows how the subject relates to the action.

Voice	The subject ...	Greek	English
Active	does the action	λούω τὸν ἵππον	I wash the horse.
Middle	does the action to or for itself, or with a personal stake in it	λούομαι	I wash myself. I take a bath.
Passive	receives the action	λούομαι ὑπὸ τοῦ δούλου	I am washed by the slave.

Smyth's own first example of the middle is λοῦμαι, "I wash myself" (section 1713; λοῦμαι is a contracted form of λούομαι [LOO-o-mai]). The two lower rows are spelled the same. Context does the sorting.

What "middle" means

The middle voice keeps the action close to the subject. It is not one meaning but a family of related ones, and you learn to feel it the way English speakers feel the difference between "I got a haircut" and "I cut my hair." Smyth lists many types. These three cover most of what a beginner meets.

• Direct reflexive: the subject does it to itself. λούομαι, "I wash (myself)." This is rarer than you might guess. Greek usually uses a reflexive pronoun for "myself."
• Indirect reflexive: the subject does it for itself, in its own interest (Smyth 1719). This is the most common type. Smyth's examples include φυλάττω, "I guard," beside φυλάττομαι, "I guard against, I am on my guard," and παρέχω, "I offer," beside παρέχομαι, "I supply from my own resources."
• Changed meaning: the middle shifts the sense of the verb, so you learn it as a separate word. λύω means "I loosen, free." λύομαι means "I free for myself," which in practice means "I ransom," "I get someone released." Smyth says exactly this in a note on λύω. πείθω means "I persuade," and πείθομαι means "I persuade myself," that is, "I obey" (with the dative).

What "passive" means

In the passive voice the subject receives the action. ὁ ἵππος λύεται: "the horse is (being) untied." English adds the helper "is." Greek does it with the ending alone.

λύομαι: the present middle/passive indicative

In the present tense, middle and passive forms are identical. Here they are, from Smyth's paradigm of λύω (section 383).

Person	Greek	Guide	Middle meaning	Passive meaning	Ending
1st sg.	λύομαι	[LÜ-o-mai]	I ransom	I am (being) freed	-ομαι
2nd sg.	λύῃ or λύει	[LÜ-ēi] / [LÜ-ē]	you ransom	you are freed	-ῃ / -ει
3rd sg.	λύεται	[LÜ-e-tai]	he/she ransoms	he/she/it is freed	-εται
1st pl.	λυόμεθα	[lü-O-me-tha]	we ransom	we are freed	-ομεθα
2nd pl.	λύεσθε	[LÜ-es-the]	you ransom	you are freed	-εσθε
3rd pl.	λύονται	[LÜ-on-tai]	they ransom	they are freed	-ονται

Chant the endings: omai, ēi, etai, ometha, esthe, ontai. The same thematic vowel pattern from lesson 8 is still there: ο before μ and ν, ε elsewhere.

Notes on the forms

• The second person singular has two spellings. The original ending -εσαι lost its σ and contracted to -ῃ. Smyth explains (section 628) that Athenians after about 400 BC often wrote ει for this sound, and modern editions print -ει in prose and comedy, -ῃ in tragedy. Both are correct. Watch out: λύει can therefore be active "he loosens" or middle/passive "you are loosened." Context decides, and it almost always does so quickly.
• The accent moves in λυόμεθα. The ending -μεθα has a short final α, but the word has four syllables, and a recessive accent can only go back three. So it lands on -ό-. Compare λύομαι, where final -αι counts as short for accent and the accent goes back to the first syllable.
• The infinitive. The present middle/passive infinitive is λύεσθαι [LÜ-es-thai], "to be freed" or "to ransom." Its active partner is λύειν [LÜ-ēn], "to free." You will use both with βούλομαι below.

Any regular -ω verb works the same way: παιδεύομαι "I am educated," γράφεται "it is written," ἄγονται "they are led," πέμπεσθε "you are sent."

Middle or passive? Reading the clues

The form λύονται could mean "they ransom" or "they are freed." Three clues settle it, nearly always within the same sentence.

1. An agent phrase means passive. The agent is the one who actually does the action of a passive verb. In Attic prose it is normally ὑπό [hü-PO] with the genitive of a person (Smyth 1678): ὑπὸ τοῦ δούλου, "by the slave."
2. A direct object in the accusative usually means middle. Passive verbs do not take ordinary direct objects. λύονται τοὺς ἀδελφούς must be "they ransom their brothers."
3. Sense. ἡ ἐπιστολὴ γράφεται cannot mean "the letter writes for itself." It is passive: "the letter is being written."

For the thing or tool by which something is done, Greek uses the plain dative with no preposition: λόγοις πείθονται, "they are persuaded by words." This is the dative of means from lesson 6. So: ὑπό plus genitive for persons, plain dative for things.

Deponent verbs

Some verbs have no active forms at all in a given tense. They wear middle or passive endings but translate as ordinary active verbs in English. Grammars call them deponents, from the Latin for "laying aside," on the old idea that they had laid aside their active forms. Many of them are verbs of the mind, the body or movement, where the subject is deeply involved in the action, which is exactly the middle's territory.

A dictionary signals a deponent by listing it with -ομαι. When you see βούλομαι in a vocabulary list, that is a sign: no active λύω-style forms to learn for this verb in the present.

Verb	Guide	Meaning	Notes
βούλομαι	[BOO-lo-mai]	I want, wish	Often with an infinitive. Smyth lists it among passive deponents, from its aorist ἐβουλήθην (section 811). The 2nd sg. is always βούλει (Smyth 628).
ἔρχομαι	[ER-kho-mai]	I come, I go	In Attic prose, used only in the present indicative; other moods and the future borrow from a different verb (Smyth 774). The full story comes later.
γίγνομαι	[GIG-no-mai]	I become, happen, am born	Koine spells it γίνομαι.
μάχομαι	[MA-kho-mai]	I fight	With the dative: μάχεται τοῖς πολεμίοις, "he fights the enemy."
δέχομαι	[DE-kho-mai]	I receive, accept, welcome	Takes an accusative object.
πορεύομαι	[po-REU-o-mai]	I travel, march, go	Very common in Xenophon.
ἀποκρίνομαι	[a-po-KRĪ-no-mai]	I answer	A useful classroom word.
οἴομαι	[OI-o-mai]	I think, suppose	2nd sg. always οἴει (Smyth 628). Attic also has the short form οἶμαι.

Deponents conjugate exactly like λύομαι: βούλομαι, βούλει, βούλεται, βουλόμεθα, βούλεσθε, βούλονται. "I want, you want, she wants, we want, you all want, they want."

βούλομαι with an infinitive

βούλομαι takes an infinitive just as "want" takes "to" in English. This opens up a huge range of things to say with very little grammar.

• βούλομαι γράφειν. [BOO-lo-mai GRA-phēn] "I want to write."
• βουλόμεθα ἀκούειν. [boo-LO-me-tha a-KOO-ēn] "We want to listen."
• οὐ βούλεται παιδεύεσθαι. [oo BOO-le-tai pai-DEU-es-thai] "He does not want to be educated."
• τί βούλει; [TI BOO-lē] "What do you want?"

Real Greek with present middle and passive verbs

You can already read the verbs in these famous lines. The rest of the vocabulary is given.

New words for this lesson

Greek	Guide	Meaning
λούω, mid. λούομαι	[LOO-ō]	wash; mid. wash oneself, bathe
πείθω, mid. πείθομαι	[PĒ-thō]	persuade; mid. obey (+ dative)
ὑπό + genitive	[hü-PO]	by (agent with a passive verb)
πολέμιοι, -ων, οἱ	[po-LE-mi-oi]	the enemy
στρατιώτης, -ου, ὁ	[stra-ti-Ō-tēs]	soldier (like πολίτης)
στρατηγός, -οῦ, ὁ	[stra-tē-GOS]	general
ἀρετή, -ῆς, ἡ	[a-re-TĒ]	excellence, virtue, courage
νόμος, -ου, ὁ	[NO-mos]	law, custom
ἐκεῖ	[e-KĒ]	there
ἐνθάδε	[en-THA-de]	here
τί	[TI]	what?